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maeverose's review against another edition
(This review contains spoilers for the prologue, if you count that as spoilers, as well as tw for grooming and pedophillia)
Two things made me uncomfortable right away in the first three chapters. First, the prologue. The goblin king knew Leisl when she was a little girl. He appeared to her as a boy and asked her to marry him… She said no, but he said “Then I will wait, I will wait as long as you remember”. He asked again and she still said no. Then she grew up and stopped going to see him. That was kinda the end of the prologue. But knowing (I assume anyway) that they get together in the end, and that he’s presumably an immortal being who disguised himself as a boy…. That’s literally grooming. That already ruins the potential romance for me, there’s no redeeming that. Reading other reviews, I’m very surprised no one else seems to have pointed that out.
The second thing that made me uncomfortable was how Leisl’s sister Käthe was described. She’s only 17 but she’s so sexualized and because those descriptions of her are from her sister’s perspective, it felt really gross to read. Also nearly every man in the town they live in has eyes for Käthe and, spoilers for chapter three: after Käthe eats fruit sold to her by a goblin man, she’s lured to the Goblin King, who proceeds to try and kiss her. Or maybe they do kiss, it wasn’t that clear.
I was excited for the labyrinth retelling/inspired aspects of this and I’ll be honest I was willing to take a chance on a stockholm syndrome romance but I draw the line at a grooming romance.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pedophilia
Grooming
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